Release notes below. A brief update on development status can be found after the notes.
Battle Resolution:
- Significant changes to battle resolution. The previous manual resolution is still available as an option until the new version is confirmed stable, free of bugs and with a bit more polish.
- The underlying mechanics are still the same, but the battle now has each side divided in 'sections', representing Skirmishers, Center, Flanks (Left/Right), Rear and off-map Reserves. Units can be dragged and dropped between these pre-battle. And moved between some of them during the battle.
- The pairing of combatants is based on the new sections, instead of the old line based match up. Units at the rear (and sometimes flanks) can also use ranged weapons for more of the battle.
- Each 'step' of the Battle resolution is 5 rounds, with a skip-to-end button.
- Units which are destroyed will fade out, and fleeing units are shown with an overlay effect. This should make it easier to see what is going on.
- Casualties taken/dealt are shown per unit in red/green and sums are shown in a summary window.
- The log has been reduced in size from the WIP screenshots, but has been kept somewhat larger than the intended final size, until all issues are ironed out and additional animations make it more clear what units are targeting/targeted by each other.
- Section Orders affect battle resolution, but mostly in regards to how quickly melee is joined and whether flanks try to fight the center or opposing flanks. There is still some work to do in this area.
Other Changes:
- Ambient training now much more likely if target is level 1
- Ambient training is now less likely if target is level 4+
- Worker unhappiness event can no longer be skipped by ignoring the notification
- Worker unhappiness event can no longer trigger for worker units without free will
- The notification 'resource purchased for upkeep' can now be dismissed for 10 turns
- Ambient Character Activity: Pugilists can now start fistfights with other characters or locals
- Ambient Character Activity: Archers can now train other characters in the Sniper skill
- Ambient Character Activity: Cultists can now train other characters in the Occult Lore skill
- Ambient Character Activity: Strategists can now train other characters in the Commander skill
- Ambient Character Activity: Faction Divine Wroth may cause characters to make a personal offering (if they can afford it), which has a chance to reduce Divine Wroth.
- Ambient Character Activity: Bards can praise their Faction, causing a gain of Influence. Discontent may sometimes cause the Bard to mock instead, causing a loss of Influence.
- Ambient Character Activity: Bards can improve the mood of other Followers and/or remove negative traits (Depressed, Broken).
- Ambient Character Activity: Historians can make breakthroughs giving a randomized Lore Level increases (usually Ancient History - with chance of some others). They can also very rarely risk uncover forbidden knowledge, causing insanity but granting a lot of experience points.
- Ambient Character Activity: Tomb Robbers can decide to raid a tomb/grave yielding a good chunk of Gold for the Faction and themselves, but at the risk of spawning Spirit Host marauders (unless settings specify no Marauders).
- Ambient Character Activity: Architects, Masons and Engineers may gain experience from being at a location being constructed, upgrading or having a site-specific construction/upgrade in progress. They may also speed up the progress of some projects.
- Characters can now react to their Faction having Divine Wroth with their personal Deity/Religion with increased discontent. Non-Heretic Religious-type classes will react more strongly and more often.
- Characters can now react to their Faction having Divine Favor with their personal Deity/Religion with increased loyalty. Religious-type classes will react more strongly and more often.
- Enchantment Spell: Shimmershift Weapons. Unlocked at Mastery Level 5. Can target non-Bound, non-Summoned, non-Raised Units with Melee Weapons. +2 Reach, +2 Armor Penetration, +2 Arcane Damage. 1 Mana/Turn upkeep if cast as non-Battle Spell.
- Enchantment Spell: Spellwoven Armor. Unlocked at Mastery Level 3. Can target non-Bound, non-Summoned, non-Raised Units with Armor Equipment. +1 Armor, +1 Toughness, +1 Magic Resistance. 1 Mana/Turn upkeep if cast as non-Battle Spell.
- New Achievement (No Stone Unturned): Fully search a province.
- Alphabetized traits and masteries when creating custom wizard templates
- Character stat 'Contentment' has been renamed 'Loyalty*. In other words the 'Discontent/Contentment' dual stat is now named 'Discontent/Loyalty'.
Bug Fixes:
- Fixed uncommon crash bug when inspecting army units
- Fixed Mana upkeep of some spells not being correctly applied
- Fixed some continuous effects lingering in the Active Effects window even when no longer active
- Fixed a bug where Characters on many types of assignments were treated incorrectly as being located at the Faction capital for various mechanics and events
Additions with 0.9.143.1:
- Tweaked the size of the Character Panel during the Deployment Phase to prevent important buttons from being inaccessible on some display resolutions
- Added Magic button to the Deployment Phase - no spells can currently be cast in this phase, but having access to the panel is useful to browse spells during deployment and makes the UI readily usable if / when deployment-phase spells are added
- Fixed incorrect tracking of wounded individuals during battles
- Fixed Vile Mending spell killing arbitrary other individuals than the ones it critically fails to heal
- Fixed armies with Reserve units sometimes resulting in default deployment setup with a missing center section
- Added details on wounded and incapacitated individuals to the Battle Summary Panel
- Added tooltips showing names of destroyed units to the Battle Summary Panel, and added a similar display of routed unit count (with names)
- Added character history records for additional relevant events
- Gaining the Undead trait will now in some cases (depending on method) remove one or more of the following physical traits: Attractive, Ugly, Scarred
- Fixed Gift of Undeath not correctly applying a Discontent modifier when this is rolled and described in the result text.
- Fixed an issue where post-siege assaults with no opposing forces were silently succesful, which was confusing despite resulting in the expected result. A dialog is now shown indicating the lack of a battle.
- Fixed a bug where the survivors of a defeated garrison would not be disbanded correctly.
- The battle resolution option dialog will now display information on factions and armies involved. This is especially useful when battle is initiated by AI factions.
- Fixed battle spell casting limits during the new battle resolution updating every 5 rounds. Now it is cumulative per round.
- Stopped the spell dropdown in the new battle resolution from resetting the selection when casting, as this made it very annoying to cast the same spell multiple times in a row.
- Added a tooltip to the new battle resolution magic panel explaining the spells per round number (ie showing ways to increase this number).
Additions with 0.9.143.2 and 0.9.143.3:
- Fixed a crash bug related to specific circumstances of spells ending
- Adamantite Forging now unlocks Adamantite Weapons, Adamantite Armor and Adamantite Shields as intended.
- Adamantite Forging now unlocks Adamantite Base for Constructs.
- Necrotite Forging now unlocks Necrotite Base for Constructs.
- Chitin Base added for Constructs (unlocked with Death/Necromancy and Beasts).
- A message dialog is now shown after an auto-resolved battle during the player turn - during AI processing, no message shown. Notifications are still created in both cases.
- Battle notifications are now shown at the top of the notification list.
- Fixed a bug where some unit modifiers where not applied and/or displayed correctly.
- Fixed a bug causing refugee events to use the wrong settlement for one of the options available.
- Fixed an issue where the event regarding how to handle the leader of a conquered non-Major faction settlement was not firing.
- Fixed a couple of bugs regarding sites changing owners.
Patch 0.9.143.4:
- Dungeons can now be seeded in the Map/Scenario Editor.
- Mods can now expand the number of character portraits and use hint/required keywords to control which characters they are used for.
- New Wizard traits for starting with followers/cultural environ: Dwarf, High Elf, Dark Elf, Orc, Goblin.
Patch 0.9.143.5:
- New Spell: Healing Potion. If the Wizard has the Alchemy trait it requires Life 1 to research. Otherwise it has more extensive requirements. This spell adds a potion item to the character which be used (from the inventory screen) to remove injuries. The character may also drink it at their own discretion if sufficiently threatened or wounded.
- Ambient Character Activity: Apothecaries can now only heal other followers from injuries, and sometimes even remove the Sickly trait.
- Read Magic: Now has a 12 turn cooldown. Advances a random research project by up to 50%.
Development Status:
This update brings changes to manual Battle Resolution, separating deployment and resolution more distinctly. The core battle resolution engine is the same, but the changes split opposing armies into sections, allows orders for those sections, and makes the section of a unit affect which attack can be used, how melee pairings are made, etc. There are also some improvements to the visual aspects: utilizing drag and drop for deployment, using highlighting better, adding fade animations when a unit is destroyed (it was rather confusing when they just disappeared due to destruction/flight), etc.
I've postponed the post-battle changes (merging handling captives and post-battle necromancy into a unified feature/mechanic). The work on battle resolution took more time than expected, but I will try to catch up on the post-battle changes in the next few days. However, if a lot of issues appear with the update, I may have to push that feature further (to the next Update). I'll do my best to balance concerns. I will update the Road Map accordingly in the next day or two.
The Battle Guide will also get an overhaul very soon, so that it reflects the new Battle Resolution options.